Like all of those in our country watching the World Cup this month, we can breathe a huge sigh of relief that England is through to the last 16. We can take some comfort - perhaps only small - that a number of big European teams have also been struggling - Germany losing to Serbia, the European champions Spain losing to the Swiss, and the 1998 winners France leaving the Cup in utter disarray and now joined by the Italians. 

What is stunning to realise is that even if Europe’s national teams have had a shaky start to the competition, Europe dominates the skyline in terms of its global influence on the game with over half of the non-Europeans at the World Cup playing for European clubs. Indeed, out of 736 players in South Africa, 545 are with European teams.

But there is another angle to this which is striking. Capello, Wenger, Fabregas, Torres, and Ballack are names which dominate the back pages of the tabloid British press. They mix seamlessly with our own UK stars such as Rooney, Lampard, Gerrard and Terry and yet, the very same papers - including the Daily Telegraph - take a markedly different approach on the front pages to European politics when unless your name is Angela Merkel or Nicolas Sarkozy, you are very unlikely to get any serious mention.

Why we have great European footballers playing in the English league is because of the so-called Bosman judgment in 1995 which facilitated the free movement of footballers across the EU. Indeed, the Single Market, providing for the free movement of goods, capital, services, and people, has influenced millions of people in our country to take up jobs, buy homes, or simply to go on a package holiday across the continent. But we’re not so relaxed about Europe’s politicians.

Perhaps we should now change this attitude? Now that substantial constitutional change in Europe is off the agenda for at least a decade, we have to focus right across Europe on how collectively we can face up to major global challenges like the economic shift from West to East; energy security and climate change concerns; as well as demographic change. The world is getting smaller, flatter and smarter.

When was it you could last tune into a continental programme on TF1 (France) or TG1 (Italy) on SKY? Indeed, when could you last hear a European debate on any channel on how we are facing up to these challenges collectively? Debates take place regularly in the European Parliament on the major issues of our time but there is great reluctance on the part of our papers and media to give coverage to them - and yet they affect us all in the laws passed and applied in our country.

Now with a coalition government looking to be actively engaged at government level with major politicians across the continent, isn’t it time for a few leading continental politicians to be engaged in British debates? And would it not be better for us as Conservative MEPs, not just to be restricted to working with Central and Eastern Europeans but positively encouraged to work with our friends from countries such as  France, Germany, Spain, Italy and others to win support for our views?

European Parliament